You can buy Blaupunkt receiver for both Car Play and Android Car for $260 in every AutoZone and make 20 years old car work with your new smart devices. I wonder when automotive industry smartens and stops making it big deal about implementing in cars.
Do you notice that one important number is missing in all the CarPly available cars? There is no screen resolution specified. This is counter high-tech standard that Apple is very good at. For one thing, I like to know if the screens are all retina display like the iPads? Or maybe the screen resolution is fixed for CarPlay?
I can tell you that very few, if any, screens are retina. In fact, a lot of them are resistive instead of capacitive. CarPlay really doesn't need a hi-res display.
I'm hoping that a lot of these manufacturers offering CarPlay will soon offer it wirelessly. Combining wireless charging with wireless CarPlay is the ideal situation. Wireless charging with wired CarPlay is pointless.
Is high resolution the most important thing when you are driving a car? Think.
Is it just me or does CarPlay absolutely blow?? I just bought a new VW and CarPlay is always freezing and crashing.
Must be VW's implementation. Acura's is flawless in the 2019 RDX.
Indeed, I can have two CarPlay apps up at once with it's ultra wide high definition display. So it's Waze on the left in 2/3's the display with the music app on the right site - the only two things I really care about. Hasn't crashed yet. Hard to drive other vehicles now
I really want one, but have resisted because I’m afraid that the installation will f-up the premium sound system that came with my top-of-the-line 2015 Subaru Forester. Plus, each car has different switching gear (steering wheel mounted controls, back-up camera on separate screen or main screen, etc.) and I’m afraid these units are one size fits all and not flexible enough to accommodate all that. Plus, car stereo installers are typically something less than artisans.
Meh - talk to the folks at Crutchfield. They have kits for just about every car. Keeping steering wheel controls isn't that big a deal; kits and adapters are common. Heck I added steering wheels control to a '97 Miata that didn't have them.
Factory backup cameras might be something else but there is a surprising number of aftermarket solutions out there for various vehicles. I'd wager there's at least one shop in your area that would do a good job - there's communities of guys into car audio; find out where they hang out and there you go. People who compete tend to not tolerate mediocrity.
2020 model year announcement will bring more vehicles with CarPlay and hopefully some will move on to wireless CarPlay.
So you can drain your phone battery faster? Sure, that is what everyone wants. A wired connection both charges the phone and music sounds significantly better compared to Bluetooth. Some vehicles offer wireless charging, but at an expensive premium that people would prefer to plug in rather than pay for a wireless charge pad.
I have CarPlay in my '19 Nissan Altima and I have to say that I am not very impressed with it. The UI is wasted by excessively large Play/Pause and Skip Forward/Reverse buttons and smaller shuffle and repeat buttons that take up the entire bottom of the screen. Because of the large transport buttons, you only have two lines of text and the second row of text is truncated artist and album information, which is typically cut off because of longer artist and album names making it unreadable. Pressing the tuning knob usually allows you to control Bass, Treble, Balance, and Fader, but not so in CarPlay. Pressing the tuning knob does some other function in CarPlay. In order to adjust the tone, I have to press the Home button, then press the Nissan app to return to the Nissan UI, and then I can adjust the tone by pressing the tuning knob. Then I have to press the CarPlay button to return to CarPlay. Since every car with CarPlay features steering wheel control buttons for volume and track skip forward and reverse, there is no reason to have these giant on-screen buttons. They can make them much smaller, incorporate the shuffle and repeat buttons on the same line as the standard transport buttons, and offer three separate lines of text for song, artist, and album. With the extra space, they can have great album artwork as well. The Nissan UI has a better layout and offers great album artwork when CarPlay is disabled. Even the UI for SiriusXM has album artwork now. There are some good things about CarPlay. The calls sound much better compared to my '16 Maxima that did not offer it. Siri tends to be more accurate with the higher quality microphone used for CarPlay. But the UI for CarPlay looks like it came from the 90s. I do enjoy using Waze on the main stereo screen instead of the iPhone. So that's a plus. But Apple really needs to redesign the UI for CarPlay.
2020 model year announcement will bring more vehicles with CarPlay and hopefully some will move on to wireless CarPlay.
So you can drain your phone battery faster? Sure, that is what everyone wants. A wired connection both charges the phone and music sounds significantly better compared to Bluetooth. Some vehicles offer wireless charging, but at an expensive premium that people would prefer to plug in rather than pay for a wireless charge pad.
You can still connect via USB if you want with a wireless set up. It isn’t either/or. Car manufacturers will do it because competition. Anyway, at present you have a heap of cars with wireless charging but USB carplay. Bit silly, don’t you think? Also, it isn’t Bluetooth but wi fi. Which is why it uses more power, but needs the bandwidth.
Still waiting for Mazda to give us those upgrades to older vehicles they claimed were coming...
I could finally upgrade our 2 Mazda CX-5 (2016 facelift and 2019 new) end of last year. It was not cheap, but worth the money. Mazda's system is not bad, but we had always some issues with the Bluetoth connection. Apple CarPlay now works fine and especially the older CX-5 feels like a «new» car.
When car manufacturers put smaller than 8" infotainment display in mid-size and bigger vehicles than that is pathetic. The 8" screen should be standard and larger screen option offered at additional cost.
For any mid to large size vehicles, at minimum 8" infotainment display must be standard. When you buy new vehicle, ask if CarPlay is available. If not than move on to your next choice in list.
Just got it in a 2019 Crosstrek. Love it!! And holy cow, Siri in the car is so much improved over my 2016 model (it had no CarPlay, just Siri Eyes Free via bluetooth). In the 2016 model you’d press the button on the steering wheel, wait a few seconds, hear the chime and give your command, then wait some more, then get a confirmation. Now, it’s all instant. It was so fast sending my first text i thought it was fake.
My ideal Apple Car Play would be a slot for an iPad with a lightening connector for charging and amplification out to the car's speakers....
Yes! This!
The car maker can save money by not having to install a screen and an OS, and not paying licensing fees to mapping companies, or M$, or whoever's core tech they use now.... the end-user can pick their tablet of choice (may require a dealer-purchased adapter to make it fit perfectly... the proper plug and all) ... the auto-maker only then needs to develop an app that works with carplay/android to get their HVAC controls and such onto the screen.
The car makers like to tout their own in-car systems... and the buyer chooses between them because they have to... but it's really like choosing between Herpes, HepA, or HIV.... none of them are good choices... and both CarPlay and AndroidAuto are far better ... you actually get the things you WANT.
Dual used to make a radio with a 30-pin dock that would extend out from the radio in the center of your dashboard, to dock your iPhone or iPod on. It was awful.
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Indeed, I can have two CarPlay apps up at once with it's ultra wide high definition display. So it's Waze on the left in 2/3's the display with the music app on the right site - the only two things I really care about. Hasn't crashed yet. Hard to drive other vehicles now
Factory backup cameras might be something else but there is a surprising number of aftermarket solutions out there for various vehicles. I'd wager there's at least one shop in your area that would do a good job - there's communities of guys into car audio; find out where they hang out and there you go. People who compete tend to not tolerate mediocrity.
edit: I just saw that the 2020 Toyota pickups will get CarPlay and Android Auto options.
edit2: The 2019 RAV4 has a CarPlay option.
Also, it isn’t Bluetooth but wi fi. Which is why it uses more power, but needs the bandwidth.
But it did exactly what you're asking for.
W6400NEX also has the optical drive. That's the one currently in my car.